Grand Canyon Times

The Interior Department has cancelled planned oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, a move officials said is contributing to the country's high energy prices.

Many are at odds with the Biden administration on this issue and are in favor of more domestic oil production, including Wayne Winegarden, a senior fellow in business and economics at the Pacific Research Institute.

"The domestic actions that restrict oil production worsen the inflation problems and the budget squeezes that too many families are facing across the states," Winegarden told Grand Canyon Times. "The expectation of greater supply by allowing more oil production would help reduce gas prices quickly and incentivize greater supply, which could help offset some of the inflationary pressures."

President Joe Biden signed an executive order halting oil and gas leasing on federal lands soon after taking office in January 2021, The Hill reported. He has since cancelled a number of oil leases, including in Alaska's Cook Inlet and the Gulf of Mexico. The lease in Cook Inlet consisted of over 1 million acres.

The Cook Inlet and Gulf of Mexico lease cancelations coincide with a downward trend in Biden's approval ratings, especially when it comes to economic issues, The Hill reported. Congressional Republicans have been critical of the administration's energy policies after U.S. gas prices hit record highs recently.

The national gas price average was $4.42 per gallon on Thursday, a 7.8% climb from a month ago when the average was $4.10 per gallon, AAA reported. In Arizona, the average is even higher at $4.70 per gallon.

When Biden announced plans to release millions of gallons from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve on March 31, gas was $4.22 per gallon, AAA reported.

"Production is essentially higher than it's been in a couple of decades," Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said during a congressional hearing two weeks ago. "On the federal lands, we're doing what we need to do, and we're following the law and making sure that we are moving those issues forward."

Contradicting Haaland's claim, total oil production in the U.S. has been on the decline for three consecutive months, the Energy Information Administration reported.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) wrote a letter requesting that the Biden administration create a schedule for increasing domestic oil production, E&E News reported. The two lawmakers said that a five-year oil and gas Gulf of Mexico leasing plan is necessary in order to help bring down the country's energy prices.

"Increasing domestic oil production to meet demand is a critical step to lowering gas prices and reducing our reliance on foreign sources," Kelly and Manchin said in the letter.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), who is known for often going against party lines, said the country should be increasing production of all types of energy, including fossil fuels and renewable energy, Fox 10 Phoenix reported. She believes that America's dependence on importing oil puts the country and its allies in danger.

"The reasonable way to address what is going to be an oil shortage in America is for us to responsibly increase our own domestic oil production," Sinema told business executives at a luncheon for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry.